Critique Ave's birthday party.
Ok we are having it in 5 weeks.
So here are my ideas. I need you guys to tell me what you think or give any other suggestions.
Thinking of having it from 11-1 or 2pm. Is that an ok amount of time or an ok time to have a party? That's right in between Ave's naptime so it works perfect for us.
We will be serving lunch...I was thinking soups since it's going to be chilly outside. I wanted to do a Squash Apple soup, chicken noodle soup and then the smashed potato soup. We have little soup bowls for everyone and I have a crock pot that holds three different things.
I was also planning on having beef sandwiches and maybe meatballs. Plus all of the apple goodies and cake. Is that too much? Not enough? Would you change anything about it?
We will be having a bonfire and a few outdoor games for people to play (assuming it's nice enough outside...but anything above 50 will be nice enough in October!) and then we might do bobbing for apples! I'll probably have stuff for smores too just in case.
We are thinking of inviting people to go bowling later in the evening if they want to. DH wants to just have the birthday party there but we just can't. We have too many people coming. I know not everyone will come, but the people from out of town probably will and it will give them something to do in the evening. Do we just invite by word of mouth? Or do we put it on the invite? It's not really the party, more like an after party. lol It's a bowling alley that has games and a bar and restaurant. It's super awesome. We would be paying for one game of bowling for everyone and then everything else is on them.
Re: Critique Ave's birthday party.
I think it sounds really awesome! The soups sound delish!
ETA: I would definitely do the bowling invites by word of mouth.
Yeah DH wanted to have the whole thing there with food and everything and we just couldn't do it. We can swing paying for one game for 20+ people (especially with not paying a house payment right now. lol) but we couldn't afford paying for food and drinks for all of those people.
sounds good to me....I would just tell people about the bowling and not put on the invite.
And yeah...pretty soon I am going to be needing ideas for the boys 1st birthday.
lol. I am even thinking of making the meatball by myself since Parents magazine has a recipe for apple meatballs!!! OMG it looks sooooo good. I hope people like apples, since that will be a major theme, but there should be enough that isn't apples too. Right?
Oh and I can't forget, there will be rolls. Lots and lots of rolls!!!
Me too! Not only am I hungry and the food all sounds so tasty, I'm also freezing! So I keep wishing I was sitting around the bonfire eating some of that soup!
You are more than welcome to come!!!
I can make all of the soup ahead of time and freeze it right?
I would think so - if you're doing trial runs of the soups anyway, just make sure to freeze a small sample then defrost in a week or two to see if it held up. Soups are pretty forgiving. And now you mentioned rolls, and all I want to do is make dinner rolls from scratch. It's cool and overcast (for once) here today, and the thought of fresh rolls with butter is going to torture me.
I saw that recipe...and the one for apple squash soup. Yum!!! I can't wait until it gets a little cooler and I can make them.
Sounds like a fabulous party! And I agree, you should do the bowling invites via word of mouth.
My critique is that I haven't been formally invited.
:
Sounds super fun though!
"This ribbon has been reported." - lovesnina
Sounds great! Ditto the pps about word of mouth for bowling.
I am a huge fan of s'mores. We had them at my rehearsal dinner, and we used to do them all the time at camp with the kids. I don't know if you've done them with a big group before, but here are my suggestions (and if you have just tell me to shut up!):
- get wooden dowels at Home Depot/Lowes. They have some that are about the diameter of a pencil, but 2 feet - 3 feet long. They're better than stick hunting, and longer than those metal camping forks. If they're think enough, you can put the end in an electric pencil sharpener to make a point, but they'll smoosh into a marshmallow without a point. And no point means less opportunity to poke someone... You can sometimes find packs of twenty at Christmas Tree or Dollar Tree stores.
- store the dowels in a bucket/garbage pail of water for a day before hand with the marshmallow end in the water. Take them out the morning of the party. The wood will be dry enough to hold, but wet enough that it won't burn.
- you can have a whole s'mores bar if you really want to make a theme of it. Regular hersheys chocolate bars for the chocolate, or you can have a bunch of mini candy bars: reeses peanut butter cups, mounds bars, milky ways, snickers, or even candy corn. I had a snickers smores once and OMG it was good. Get the regular graham crackers, but also some of those cinnamon covered grahams too.
- a bucket of sand nearby gives people a great place to stash the sticks upright so that they aren't setting them down all sticky on tables/eye level with a child.
- a bucket of water is great for putting out flaming smores, or for plunging a hand that has hot marshmallow dripped on it.
The party sounds awesome! Have fun!